


I don't think there's a manual for this

by itsallAvengers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A Journey Of Self Discovery, Adoption, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Fluff, He is also Very Stressed and Needs A Nap, If he wasn't so busy sticking to walls when he's supposed to be napping that is, Kid Peter Parker, M/M, Peter Parker YOU ARE A MENACE, So does Peter, So does Steve, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Superfamily, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Vague Xmen Referencing Because I Wasn't Sure How Else To Fit In Peter Suddenly Showing His Powers, anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 09:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: So. His son can stick to things, apparently.If only Tony had realised thisbeforehe'd caught him hanging off the 89th floor of the tower.Well. Parenting was never going to be a smooth road, was it?





	I don't think there's a manual for this

**Author's Note:**

> More Superfamily! I'm sensing a pattern here...

As it happened, the fact that their newly adopted son turned out to be enhanced came as a complete surprise to Tony and Steve.

 

They’d had him two months and three days. A three year old that both Tony and Steve had fallen in love with the moment they’d set eyes on him. He was small and skinny and had the hugest eyes Tony thought he’d ever seen, and a laugh that made his heart want to melt. Although pretty shy at first, when Steve had happened to hit on the right question (’so what’s your favourite thing to do?’), the boy turned out to be passionate and excited and very, very fucking smart.

Yeah. It was a pretty easy decision, in the end.

Signing all the papers and going though all the checks (although- seriously, they were superheroes, did they really need to go through the ‘do you have murderous urges?’ questions?) was totally, utterly worth it to see the look on Peter Parker’s face when he was told he’d get to have a new home with them.

And hell- him coming back with them had probably been one of the happiest days of Tony’s life. For the first time in his life, he had a proper, honest-to-God family. Tony was man enough to admit he’d shed a tear or two.

At least he wasn’t like _Steve_ though. That man took one look at Tony holding Peter at the threshold of the tower and burst straight into tears.  
(Natasha was going to delete the video of him going up to Steve seconds after and then doing exactly the same thing. He would make sure that footage was never seen by anyone else’s eyes again.)

 

So yes. Happiness all around. They had a son. They had a son who could speak better than Clint in the mornings and owned a smile that made even Natasha swoon. Generally speaking, Tony was pretty sure he hadn’t stopped smiling for nearly three months. Steve was no better- damn guy looked constantly as if he was about to burst into song.

 

Of course- because they were superheroes and that was just their life- something had to surprise them out of the blue.

 

* * *

 

 

“No, Patrice, there is no way-” Tony sighed as she cut him off yet again, her harried voice carrying down the line and making the headache worse with every note. 

“No! We can’t afford to pull out of the convention this late, it’s a huge…yes, yes, I am fully aware of the- what? That’s ridiculous and you know it, I can’t just-”

Throwing an approximation of his cab fare over to the driver (give or take a hundred) Tony slipped out of the door, grabbing his suitcase as he went and praying the coffee shop just underneath the Avengers tower would be open. He could really do with a caffeine IV- maybe that could be his next big design, parents everywhere would crawl over one another for something like that.

“Look, you can’t change anything, Patrice, the deal is already done,” Tony stopped to button up his coat against the wind, and looked up to the tower where his husband and son were waiting for him. Oh, how he wished his goddamn PR manager would get off the phone so that he could-

He stopped. Squinted his eyes a little. 

 

Hm. That seemed remarkably like a human figure at the window of…

 

Tony’s blood ran cold as he went through the floor-plans in his head and realised that was Peter’s room. His heart stopped completely as he jerked forward, ready to override the call and scream for JARVIS through the phone- but then he stopped a moment before the words could leave his mouth, confusion mounting as he managed to pick out the reds and blues of what definitely looked like… Peter’s onezie?

Patrice was still yapping through the line, but Tony had shut her off long ago, stepping forward a few steps and working Peter’s name silently in his mouth as he realised that yes, that was indeed his son hanging from the 89th floor of his tower building.

 

“Patrice?” He said calmly, “I’m gonna have to call you back.”

The call ended swiftly, and yeah- that was when the screaming began.

 

* * *

 

 

“Steve?” Tony connected through to Steve’s cellphone through the line in his suit, which was currently hovering a couple of hundred feet in the air and holding his squirming son firmly between two metal arms, “can I ask you something?”

“Mm hmm,” Steve murmured, and he sounded sleepy- Tony almost felt sorry for him, because he was about to get a rather rude awakening.

He shuffled Peter in his arms a bit, whilst the boy just poked curiously at the mechanisms in Tony’s neck and then hummed in pleasure when Tony knocked up the heated plates on the outside of his suit so that his tiny troublesome child wouldn’t freeze to death whilst hanging in the air. “Why did I just have to tell JARVIS to send my armour through the 2nd story windows so that I could suit up and collect our child from the window of the 89th floor as fast as possible? Why did that happen?”

There was silence down the other line, and then a quiet shuffling noise. “Huh?”

“Peter,” Tony said instead, turning his head down to his son and jigging him a little, “do you want to tell Papa what you were just doing seventeen seconds ago?”

“I was climbing!” Peter said enthusiastically, beaming up at Tony as he leaned in close to his ear, as if he could talk to Steve through there, “I looked outta the window an’ there were loads of birds flying in a flock an’ I wanted to see ‘em so I went outta the window and watched ‘em properly!” 

Another silence. Longer, this time. And then a very sudden, very fast burst of static. Steve was undoubtedly sprinting to Peter’s room, which meant Tony had about 1.2 seconds until the inevitable-

Ah. There it was. 

Not even bothering with the handle- simply yanking the door straight off it’s hinges, Steve bolted into the room with wide, searching eyes. Of course, he saw Tony and Peter just outside the window, hovering patiently. Peter even waved a little when he saw his Papa staring at him.

Steve, bless him, just sort of stood there. Like he didn’t quite know what to do. Although- in all fairness, neither had Tony. There were currently a lot of very confused onlookers beneath him stepping on a lot of very expensive glass.

“So- our child sticks to walls, Steve,” he said helpfully through the speaker, and then gestured to the window just above Steve’s head, “can you let us in please?”

Numbly, Steve pulled the window. Off. He stared at the pane of glass in his hands for a few moments before calmly placing it against the wall.

Tucking Peter in so he didn’t bump his head, Tony crawled through the gap Steve had made for him. Once on solid ground again, he instantly dismantled the suit so that he was holding Peter in his own two arms, clutching the boy tightly into his chest.

When Steve continued to say absolutely jack-all, Tony spoke again. “According to JARVIS, the change in environment, diet and state of living may have triggered some sort of genetic awakening in our son’s body. We’re thinking the X gene, but that has yet to be decided,” he said, nodding. 

“I think I’m having a heart attack.” Steve said, nodding back.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t the one who stepped out of the cab and saw him hanging there.”

“Oh God.”

“Oh God indeed.”

“He was out there-”

“Yep.”

“Just….hanging-”

“Yep.”

“No harness or grip or-”

“Nope.”

 

Steve stopped. He nodded, raised his eyebrows, and then fainted.

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve woke up a few minutes later to Peter bouncing on his chest and Tony sat, cross-legged, with his head in his lap, the first thing he did was swear.

“Child,” Tony pointed to Peter, “you didn’t hear that.”

Steve’s eyes drifted down to the small boy smiling down at him. “Why’d you faint?” He asked curiously. “Fainting usually happens ‘cause of a lack of oxygen to the brain, but your lung capacity is a lot bigger than mine or daddy’s, isn’t it? I was scared- but it’s alright, Daddy told me you’d wake up soon, and you did!”

Steve could help but smile, looking more than a little overwhelmed as his large hands gripped Peter’s shoulder gently. “I’m fine, Peter,” he said.

“Just remember to breathe, maybe,” Tony said, patting his cheek as Steve slowly sat back up, Peter still in his arms.

“So,” Steve said eventually, “In the ‘Good Parent’ chart, where do you think ‘falling asleep on the couch and letting your three year old son climb out of a window on the 89th floor’ would rank?”

“In all fairness, the window in question was about 6 feet above Peter’s head. At the time, neither of us were aware of his apparent rock-climbing skills. I think you can be let off. It’s Peter we have the problem with, here,” Tony rubbed his head in his hand and winced. God, his head hurt.

Peter had been happily fiddling with Steve’s shirtsleeve up until that point, but at those words, he froze up. His eyes widened a little, and he turned to Tony with something like fear on his face. “Daddy? What did I… did I do something bad? Why am I a problem?”

“No, no, baby, not like that! I didn’t- you’re not a problem at all. You’re- you’re perfect, alright?” Tony said hurriedly, hands going out and framing Peter’s worried little face, “you’re just… it turns out you’re a little different than what we thought. You know sticking to things isn’t…average child development?”

Peter’s head cocked a little to the side. “Well, yeah,” he shrugged, “but I can! I didn’t even know I could until I tried it just then! And you can fly- Papa can break really hard things that no one else can. Uncle Bruce turns green and goes massive when he’s angry. I just thought…” he shrugged, looking down and shuffling a little bit, “I just thought it meant I properly belong in your family now.”

“Hey, Petey,” Steve frowned, stroking a hand through Peter’s hair, “you’d belong here whether you had superpowers or not, you know that right? We love you no matter what you are.”

“But- as a general rule, please please please do not ever do that again,” Tony added, shutting his eyes and shuddering, “you nearly gave me and Papa joint heart attacks. Just…stay on the ground for now, okay? Can you promise us that?”

Peter bit his lip. “But I  _like_  being up high! And I don’t ever fall, look!” And before either of them even knew what was happening, Peter was wriggling from Steve’s arms and scampering to- no, wait, _up_ \- the wall, onto the ceiling, where he just….dangled. Like some sort of child-shaped fruit or- or- 

God, Tony needed a nap.

They both jumped to their feet instantly, arms out, shrieks of horror barely contained as Peter let his arms swing happily, held on by the tips of his toes. Tony had no idea how he was doing that- like some sort of adhesive on his skin or something- but whatever it was, it was fucking terrifying to see for the first time in your three year old son.

“Peter, get down!” Steve said loudly, face paling as he turned to Tony, “he was doing that out of the window?” He hissed incredulously.

Tony tapped at his chest. “I lost 30 years of my life. I will never get them back.”

They didn’t have a chance to say anything else. Steve was too busy grabbing Peter as he leaped off into his arms with a giggle. A strangled sort of noise came out of Steve’s mouth, and Tony stepped forward, ready to grab Peter if Steve fainted again- but he managed to stay upright, just staring at their son with a sort of overwhelmed horror on his face.

“We should probably get him checked out by Bruce. Or Xavier,” Steve said in the end.

Tony nodded, leaning against his shoulder a little, Peter’s hand dropped on his hair, and he felt little fingers tugging at the knots. “Probably.”

Steve sighed, sagging a little. His spare arm wrapped around Tony’s waist and tugged him in. “But not tonight. I think we’ve had enough tonight. Let’s… tomorrow.”

Tony just nodded. “Seconded.”

“Thirded!” Peter called out from Steve’s chest, frowning a little, “I wanna nap.”

Steve looked at the gaping hole where the pane of glass used to be, and blushed a little. “Okay- our room,” he said in the end. 

When Steve moved, his arm tugged Tony along with him, and together they all walked back out of Peter’s room, still slightly shell-shocked.

“Hey Steve,” Clint called out from the couch as they passed through the living room, “do I wanna know why you hightailed it out of the room like the devil was grabbing your ass?”

“My son is adhesive,” Steve answered, and Tony nodded his agreement.

Clint looked at them all for a few seconds, before blinking a few times and turning back to the TV. “Yep,” he said, mostly to himself, “shouldn’t have asked.”

 

By the time they’d reached their room,  Peter’s eyes were already fluttering shut against Steve’s shoulder. They gently put him down in the middle of the bed, and then stood there and watched him silently.

“How are we going to deal with this?” Steve asked in the end.

Tony just shrugged. “Same way we deal with everything else that’s fucking weird around here. Just run with it. Because we’re superheroes and all, in my opinion, slightly unhinged.”

Steve spared one last glance at their now peacefully dozing son, and then unfolded his arms. “Let’s sleep,” he declared.

“Ah, yes, perfect,” Tony started slipping down into the bed immediately, toeing off his shoes as he went, “the best solution to all problems. I love the way you think, darling.”

Steve didn’t say anything- just slipped back under the covers and reached out for Tony across Peter’s head. His hand pressed around the nape of Tony’s neck and squeezed, pulling him in a little to place a kiss against his forehead. “At least he’s not still jumping around on the outside of the tower” he said, thumb stroking across Tony’s cheekbone.

Tony gave a thumbs up. “Oh, how blessed we are, our son was only dangling hundreds of feet above ground for a _few_ minutes, rather than ten,” he said wryly, letting his head drop into Steve’s throat.

Wordlessly, Steve’s gentle fingers came up and pressed against the sides of Tony’s temples, rubbing softly and relieving the pressure in the way only he knew how to do. Tony gave a soft noise of pleasure, and Steve peppered feather-light lips across his face as his fingers worked. “Just sleep” he heard Steve say, “we can deal with this in the morning.” 

Tony laughed again and glanced down at Peter, curled up in the middle of them and looking peaceful as ever. His hand absently brushed across the boy’s face before he could help himself, but luckily Peter didn’t wake- just sniffed a little and scratched his nose. 

“I’m the luckiest man on the whole damn planet,” Tony breathed quietly, looking up to Steve.

He smiled softly, thumb tracing Tony’s lip for a moment before shutting his eyes. “You’ll have t’fight me for that title,” he murmured.

Tony’s head was still throbbing a little, and his heart probably wouldn’t go back to a normal rate for at least a week after that scare- but he didn’t care. It was all going to be so, so worth it. It already was. He had Steve. He had Peter, He really didn’t need anything else. Take away everything else and he’d still be the happiest man alive. 

Even if his husband was over ninety years old and his son appeared to share traits with glue. It was fine. Just another day in the life.

Tony wouldn’t trade it for the universe.

 

He smiled, and fell asleep with one hand entwined with Steve’s and one wrapped around his son’s waist.


End file.
